Periscope: Traveling through time in the Oklahoma skies

Every seat is a window seat on the City of Wichita. Mine was the last one on the left, back by the door. The windows are bigger than we’re used to these days, good-sized rectangles we’d consider picture windows that allow a much better view than today’s three-pane portholes. But cabins didn’t have to be pressurized in 1928; airplanes never got close to today’s 30,000-foot cruising levels.

The interior is different too, reminiscent of a Depression-era cruise ship or Pullman car with wood paneling and individual sconces. There are no tray tables to lock and seats are permanently in their full, upright positions.

We sat at the edge of the runway at Sundance Airport in Yukon, poised for takeoff on a warm June 1 afternoon. The corrugated metal skin and lack of climate control had all 10 passengers mopping foreheads while we waited for the vintage Ford Trimotor to make its turn, throttle up and fly.

That is the time one thinks of all the things that could go wrong.

“This airplane is 88 years old. Should it still be flying?”

“Is there enough air in that tire?”

“Why was that guy standing on the tarmac with a giant fire extinguisher while the pilot got the engines started?”

“What did that guy mean when he said it probably couldn’t fly with only two engines?”

“It’s my birthday. I want to have another one. What am I doing here?”

But like a roller coaster set free atop the first drop, it’s too late. We are vibrating down the runway, swiftly above it, and there is nothing quite like the view of the ground shrinking below. It is easy to imagine being a passenger on this airplane in 1929, that it was likely the flier’s first time off the ground, the emotions a fear-and-excitement amalgamation that produces an inexplicable smile.

The Ford Trimotor was the first mass-produced passenger airliner, and this particular airplane, one of only eight that are still airworthy, has a special connection to Oklahoma. Transcontinental Air Transport used it to introduce the first coast-to-coast service on July 7, 1929. Passengers left New York traveling overnight by train and switching to the City of Wichita in Columbus, Ohio. From there, they flew to Waynoka. The Woods County town was chosen because it had a new $600,000 rail depot, the largest in the state. After a fuel stop in Wichita, the Ford Trimotor landed at a newly built airstrip to trade passengers with the railroad. The new Waynoka airport, built at a cost of almost $300,000 ($4.3 million in today’s dollars), contained the third-largest hangar in the United States and the most brilliantly lighted landing field in the world. Passengers slept in Pullman cars overnight to Clovis, New Mexico, where they boarded another Trimotor to complete the 48-hour cross-country trip to Los Angeles. The one-way fare cost $338, the equivalent of $4,833 in 2017.

The route, designed by TAT investor Charles Lindbergh, lasted only a year. With a push from the federal government, TAT in 1930 merged with Western Air Express to become Transcontinental and Western Airlines, or T&WA. That company later changed its name to Trans World Airlines, known to most as TWA until its demise in 2001.

But for 15 minutes on a sunny Thursday afternoon, our destination was the Oklahoma skies of 1929, where at 115 miles per hour and 1,200 feet above the Kilpatrick Turnpike it was easy enough to travel through time.

Author’s note: The City of Wichita is operated by the Experimental Aircraft Association. It tours the United States offering rides to the public in an effort to promote interest in aviation.